Dream a Little Dream of MeThe Monster at the End of this Book
by carabc03
Summary: (bad summary, please give the story a chance) Sam finds out that Dean saw himself as his own worst nightmare when he was under the influence of the African Dream Root in season 3 episode 10. Sam tries to show Dean that he is cared about. Sad Dean Caring Sam lots of brotherly fluff (probably a one shot, but if I get good reviews I will continue it :D)
1. Chapter 1

Sam lowers his fake badge after showing the store owner before beginning his questioning. "Any flickering lights? Or cold spots? Or, I don't know, scratching from the walls?" He asks, not so subtly.

"Oh, I get it, you're larping!" The heavyset comic store owner declares, the confusion clearing from his features. Sam and Dean exchange bewildered looks.

"What the hell is larping?" Dean asks, straying from his polite FBI agent façade.

"Like you don't know," the man replies mockingly. "Larping! Live Action Role Playing! Pretty hardcore, too," he adds, regarding their suits and fake ID's. "You know, from the book series. What was it called? Where they fight demons and vampires and ghosts? Aha! Supernatural!" He says, snapping his fingers. "You're larping as the two main characters! What were their names? Shawn and Dan? Sid and Drew?"

"Sam and Dean?" Sam supplied.

"Yeah. That's it!"

The two brothers make eye contact. "We're gonna need all the copies of... Supernatural... You've got."

*Later*

"Okay," Sam says, "I think we've read enough of these to know that this is really the story of our lives." Sam puts down the book he was reading. Dean readily agrees, standing and walking out the door without bothering to see if Sam is following.

*Later*

"These books really didn't get the publicity they deserved," the publisher says wistfully, tracing her finger along the spines of several Supernatural books.

"Yeah, they were so... interesting to the both of us. We really connected with the characters," Dean says, and Sam grins. If only this woman knew...

"Me too!" She agrees immediately. "But the characters were so sad! Like when Sam lost Jesse... Oh, as if he hadn't lost enough!" Sam's smile drops. "And when Dean is confronted with himself, his own worst enemy in Dream a Little Dream of Me, and the dream Dean talks about how worthless real Dean feels and how much he hates himself and how dead he is inside… And that part when he said 'Your own father didn't care if you lived or died, why should you?' Ugh, that just broke my heart!"

Sam shoots Dean a look, but his brother suddenly seems intrigued by the floor tiles and refuses to meet his gaze. Sam smiles weakly at the publisher. "A minute, please," he says, not waiting for a response before dragging an objecting Dean into the next room.

"You didn't tell me that!" Sam whisper-shouts.

"Are we really gonna do this right now?" Dean hisses back.

"Well, we would've done it a year ago if you'd bothered to tell me how you felt!" Sam says, not even bothering with the whisper part this time.

"It didn't- it _doesn't_ matter." Dean replies, looking away.

"Of course it matters," Sam says softly. "You're my brother... I need to know when you're in pain. "Dean... You're not worthless. You know that, don't you?"

Dean smiles cockily. "Of course. I'm adorable."

Sam doesn't laugh. "Honestly. Tell me."

Dean's smile drops. "I'm fine, Sam."

Sam narrows his eyes. "You'd say that if you just been shot and you were bleeding out."

Dean's getting angry. "Well, what the hell else am I supposed to do, Sammy? Talk about pain that I know you can't fix? You've got enough on your shoulders, no need to worry about me in addition to it." He says dismissively.

Sam stares at his brother incredulously. " _You're_ telling _me_ I've got enough on my shoulders? Dean, will you acknowledge for one second everything that you've done for me? Everything you've kept inside for my sake? Every time you've been hurt just so I could be a little safer?"

Dean locks eyes with his brother. "And I'd do it all again in a heartbeat."

Sam sighs. "I know, Dean. That's what scares me." The older boy frowns, and his brother continues. "You never give a second thought to your own health. You act like your own existence is just... I don't know... Unimportant. You act like you're only being tolerated, like you don't really matter."

Dean looks away. "Sammy, it's not like that."

"Then what is it like?! Because you haven't given me a lot to go on!"

"It's the only thing that keeps me going!" Dean explodes. Sam stares at him, open mouthed. "Your safety... Your happiness... It's all I got, man. It's too late for me. My motivation to keep going, to keep trying, is you. If I can give you one more shot at a normal life... Maybe it was all worth it."

Sam lets a tear roll down his cheek. "Dean... I don't want to be safe or happy if you're not there right by my side. You've done enough for me. I can carry some of your burden. You don't always have to be alone." Dean opens his mouth to object, so Sam hurries on before he can.

"You sacrificed your childhood so I could have a chance at innocence. Even when I was little... I noticed how dad treated you. He kept pushing and pushing because he knew that you would never break. Or maybe he just didn't care enough to see that you were already long broken. I called him Daddy. He protected me. You called him sir. He treated you like you didn't matter.

"You gave up everything you had so I could have everything I wanted, or as close as you could get it. But don't you see? No kid is supposed to do that. You're allowed to be selfish sometimes. Expected to, even. Kids aren't supposed to know how to shoot. They shouldn't have to keep a gun under their pillow. You destroyed your own childhood, accepted your own happiness as a lost cause, and you didn't complain. Not once. Not ever. You just... Took it. Why did you take it, Dean?"

Sam is shouting now, and Dean's jaw is clenched- his brother knows this means he's fighting back tears. "You can cry if you want. You don't always have to be the strong one. God damn it, Dean, just this once, let me take care of you." Dean lets a tear escape his sad green eye, and nods. He says a single word, just one, but it's enough: "okay."


	2. Chapter 2

**AN- Well, I wanted to say two things: 1- I really appreciate the reviews, and I'll try to update as often as I can. :) 2- In this version of the story, Uriel never told Sam that Dean remembered more about Hell than he was letting on. I hope you enjoy!**

Sam and Dean sit in silence as they drive away from the publisher's house. Dean sighs, feeling his brother's eyes on him. "I promised I would keep you updated. If you want to know something, ask. Don't just keep staring at me like that."

Sam smirks, glad to hear his brother acting more Dean-like. "I don't have to ask anymore," he taunts. "I have a chronicle of all your thoughts and feelings throughout this whole road trip."

Dean frowns. "Right," he mutters. "Forgot about those."

Sam's smile fades. It hadn't even occurred to him that there was more his brother didn't want him to read about- he'd mostly just mentioned the books to annoy Dean. "Is there something else you're not telling me?"

Dean shifts in his seat. "Nothing important."

"I didn't ask if it was important, I asked if there was something you were keeping from me, and apparently there is. So tell me." When Dean doesn't respond, Sam adds, "Or I could always read the other books. And the books won't sugarcoat it like we both know you will."

"You're never gonna stop threatening me with those, are you?" Dean asks, but he doesn't sound angry. He just sounds tired. "Well, I guess you'd find out one way or another. Sam... In hell, it wasn't just four months. It was 40 years."

Sam breaths in, but doesn't say anything. He just waits for his brother to continue.

"The things they did to me there…" A tear wells up in Dean's eyes, but he forces it away and tightens his grip on the steering wheel. "They chained me up and electrocuted me. They peeled my skin off, slowly and painfully. They cut me open and hurt me in ways you could never understand. But the worst… the worst part was when Dad came. He saw me. He watched them torture me, and he didn't do a damned thing. And that hurt enough… But then he talked to me. He said that he wouldn't have died for me if he knew how I was gonna waste it. If he knew how much of a disappointment I'd be. If he'd known how many people I'd let down… How I'd let you die, right in front of me. I was supposed to protect you." Dean's voice cracks, and Sam can hear the loathing laced in every word.

"You have to know that probably wasn't Dad," he says, trying desperately to make his brother see that it was just a trick. Dean turns to him with dead eyes, his face so broken and hopeless now that he's not hiding his pain behind a smile for Sam's sake.

"Who else would it have been? And are you really surprised?" he asks.

"Dad would never say that!" Sam says.

"Not to you, anyway. You were always his favorite," Dean mutters.

"What the hell does that mean?"  
"Nothing. Forget about it," Dean says.

"Dean," Sam says, warning clear in his tone. "Tell me. You promised you wouldn't shut me out like this anymore."

Dean turns to look at his younger brother. "Dad ever hit you?" he asks. Sam is too shocked to say anything. "Didn't think so. Like I said, you were his favorite."

"He hit you?" Sam asks in a dangerously low voice.

Dean is already looking like he regrets saying anything. "Look, it's not like it was anything I didn't deserve."

This attempt to make Sam feel better backfires terribly. "Dean! You didn't deserve it! Any of it!" Then he pauses. "What makes you think you did?"

His older brother shrugs. "Well, the time he hit me the hardest was when I couldn't talk you out of college. I don't know why I even tried to; I wanted you to be happy, and you weren't happy with us. I guess I just didn't want to be alone. When Dad did things like that, I still had you. You stayed by my side through thick and thin, and you… you cared when no one else did. When I didn't care about myself."

"Dean…" Sam whispers. "I had no idea. I would've stayed if you had just told me."

"That's exactly why I couldn't tell you," Dean says. "I couldn't hold you back. My life… there wasn't really a whole lot of potential. But you got into college. And you were smart. You had your shit together; you were gonna be happy. Look, I know I tease you for being a nerd a lot, but, um… I guess I was just jealous, you know? See, you were capable of building a life for yourself. And it hurt to know I would never have that. But just because I'm hopeless doesn't mean I have to take you down with me," Dean says. He smiles, but there's no happiness in it.

"Why do you do that?" Sam asks angrily. His brother frowns in confusion, and the younger Winchester keeps going. "You always sacrifice your own well being for me. Do you think that's what I want? Do you think I want to live in ignorance while you're struggling? Do you think I want you to keep all that to yourself? Do you think I like watching you destroy yourself when you think like this?" He's shouting at this point. "I wish you could see yourself the way I do. Because this? This hatred of yourself? It's not healthy. And you don't deserve it. Just like you didn't deserve what Dad did to you." His voice gets small now, and in that moment it hurts how much he seems like the innocent child he never got the chance to be. "Sometimes you act like you only exist for my benefit. If you get stabbed and I get a paper cut, you're the one asking if I'm okay. You have a life of your own, Dean. and I want you to live it."

"I can't just forget, Sam. You have no idea how much I wish I could, but I just can't. I can't forget Hell, and I can't forget Dad. And I can't forget this, how I feel right now. What no one ever tells you about the pit is that it's not just the pain they throw at you, it's the hopelessness you feel when you think you'll never escape. But, Sammy, I still feel it. And up here, it's almost worse. At least when I was in Hell, no one expected me to be okay."

"I don't expect you to be okay. Not after everything you've been through. I just want to help you try. You're not a lost cause, Dean. I know you think you are, but you're not. Just… please tell me when you're feeling like this, okay? I won't read the books unless I really need to, but I need to know when you're hurt."

"Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"Is there hope for me, even still?"

"Dean, there always was. You just didn't see it. Like I said, I'm not expecting you to be happy all of a sudden. I just want to show you that you do have a chance. No matter what Dad, demons, or anyone else- you included- say."

 **/AN Does anyone have any requests? If so, please leave it in the reviews! (Also, please tell me if you think I should add some other characters for the next chapter) I hope you liked it!/**


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